Entrepreneur Book Writing

Too many new authors think of a “mega-concept” for their first book. They want to go epic; they want to write a book that answers everything and is so useful that it will have something in it for everybody!

Well, that book already exists. It’s called an encyclopedia. And, if you take a cursory look around, not many people are hunting the Amazon bestseller lists for the latest version of Britannica. 

A non-fiction book needs to answer a specific problem. 

As an example, let’s look at bestselling author Annie Duke’s latest book: How to Decide. What problem does that title tell you it solves? Indecisiveness. What would you expect to read about in that book? How to make better decisions, or how to make decisions in the first place. Would the book have some theory about why people can’t make decisions? Probably.

One problem, clearly stated.  

But would the book also spend several chapters talking about a company’s HR department, how to hire better staff and how to keep employees happy? Probably not.

Here’s another example: The New York Times bestseller, Dare to Lead, by Brené Brown. Looking only at its title, do you think that book would spend a third of its content discussing the reasons CEOs need to reduce their company’s carbon footprint? Nope. Would it enter into a detailed discourse about the types of software an enterprise needs to increase its efficiency?

I don’t think so. 

Non-Ficton books need to solve a problem, preferably one major problem. They should be focused on a single major concept. If you have more to write about, you should include it in a second book.  

This is one of the biggest mistakes new writers make: They go too broad. 

Follow this formula and you won’t go wrong:

• Who is my audience?
• What problem do I solve for them?
• Build an Outline with Chapters that take them through the problem solving process.

Using Dare to Lead again, go to Amazon and use the Look Inside option for the Kindle version of the book.  Your will see four Chapters (named Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four) and only the first chapter has Sections (One through Five).  The author has created containers for the advice she is offering and is doing so on an ‘as needed’ basis.  Meaning, just because Part One has Sections, doesn’t mean the rest of the chapters need Sections. 

Use a concise Outline to hold the containers that are your chapters which will organize what you will write about.  Once you have a clear through line you can begin to fill in the content (write the chapters).

Why your book needs to solve a problem — let’s talk Searchability

We all want to be New York Times Best Sellers. Those of us who have been writing for many years know that this goal is akin to the hackneyed tale of the young hopeful who travels to Hollywood to make it big, only to end up serving coffee and cakes at the local diner for the rest of her life. 

Unless you’re Richard Branson, a better goal for your first non-fiction book is to write something that establishes your presence as an expert in your field. Another good goal for your first book is to get some direct business from it.

A successful first book also opens the door to a better-selling second book. 

So, if you’re not Richard Branson, how would people find your book? They’d search Google, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Apple. And they would search for the problem they are trying to solve. 

For example, they might search for “how to decide better,” and up pops Annie Duke’s How to Decide, which we discussed above. Or they might search for “how to lead more effectively.” Hello, Brené Brown’s latest book. 

If your nonfiction book’s subject isn’t something specific that people might search for, you’re probably going too wide. 

You are not your own brand in people’s minds — yet

Before February 2021, few people would’ve equated Bill Gates with climate change. And yet his book on climate change rapidly hit the top spot on The New York Times Best Seller list. 

I imagine that if Elon Musk wrote a book titled Which Pokemon Is My Favorite and Why, it would probably also hit national bestseller lists — at least for a while. 

That’s because Bill Gates and Elon Musk are their brands. As one literary agent once put it to me, the author’s network is key in nonfiction.

Until you have that network, relying on SEO and answering a specific problem with your book are better options when settling on a topic for your book. 

In Australia, there’s a company called The Printer Guy. I don’t need to ask what that company does. The title solves my problem. After getting a few printers satisfactorily fixed, I might discover that they also bake bagels as a side hustle. Sure, I’d buy a bagel from them later. Because now I know them. They have grown from “just printers” to a brand in themselves. 

If your book answers a problem, does it well and really helps the reader, that reader will soon start to look at you as the brand. Perhaps, then, six books later, you could also write a book about anything and have it sell. 

For now, stick with one specific topic that you are known for…and, if you need help, please reach out to me.

Let’s face it. You probably have a really big idea.

You want to change the world in a big way.

But how do you even begin to accomplish such big feats?

My proposal to you is to start small.

Here’s the bottom line. When you have a huge idea, it can feel tremendously overwhelming.

You don’t know where to start. When you don’t know where to start, you don’t create any momentum. When you don’t create any momentum, you’re standing still.
It can feel so daunting when the rest of the world seems like they’ve got it figured out. It feels like the world is passing you by and you don’t know what to do.

It can be frustrating.

Here’s the advantage I want to share with you.

When you’re trying to start something big, there’s actually an advantage to starting small.

Here are two examples:

Think about Facebook.

Facebook started really small. First, it was just an idea that Zuckerberg and a few of his friends put together. When they first released it, Facebook was only available for Harvard students.

Then did they go to the world? No!

They released it to institutions in the Boston area. Then they released it to Ivy League schools. Then they finally opened it up to everyone else.

But it first started as a tiny idea for Harvard.

When we look at Facebook and the behemoth it’s become, realize that it only began as a little project for Harvard students.

Think about Gary Vaynerchuk.

When he was young, Gary loved trading baseball cards.

Then he got into his family’s wine business. It was similar because he saw that people collected wine like they did trading cards. There was value there.
He studied wine and became obsessed.

He helped grow his family business and then he started small in terms of marketing and growing his business.

He started his online show. That picked up a ton of momentum. That was the one thing that he focused on.

From there, he leveraged that momentum to start VaynerMedia. He’s now got a sports agency and so much more, but it all started small.

So what’s the takeaway for us?

There’s an advantage to starting small.

Reason number one to start small is that it’s easier.

When you start small, it’s easier to think about what you need to do to begin a project.

When you start big, that can feel daunting. It can feel overwhelming. You don’t know where to begin. You don’t know what to do.

Starting small is easier to break down. It’s easier to see what your next steps are.

Reason number two to start small is that it allows you to create momentum.

Momentum is your friend. People are drawn to momentum.

For example, I have big ambitions to help entrepreneurs all over the world. That’s the big idea.

But when I broke it down, I realized I could build the most momentum with the one thing I am really good at which is helping people craft or clarify their one big idea and then write a book that lays the foundation for their branded platform.

That’s where I have the most experience. For years and years, I’ve been helping hundreds of people with this.

That’s why I’ve started the upcoming Entrepreneur Book Accelerator program.

Instead of trying to help ALL entrepreneurs, first I start with helping this smaller market I know I can dominate and really serve.

That creates a ton of momentum. That creates a lot of opportunity.

Reason number three to start small is that momentum creates opportunity.

Momentum creates opportunity that you can’t even see at the present moment.

When you have momentum on your side, you start attracting all kinds of new opportunities.

Instead of trying to accomplish the big idea right out of the gates (and I am all for big ideas), I propose that you break it down.

What are the steps leading up to that big idea that you can focus on and dominate right now?

The key here is PATIENCE!

If we’re patient in the beginning, the momentum is actually going to make it easier for us to speed up the success that we want in our lives.

When we try to do the big idea first, it’s slow. It’s heavy. It’s like pushing a boulder up a hill.

What happens is that we get frustrated. We give up. We don’t do anything. We stand still.

And when we stand still, it feels like the rest of the world is passing us by.

If you start small, it’s easy to create momentum. With momentum comes opportunity.

Think back to Mark Zuckerberg. Think back to Gary Vaynerchuk.

These are all good examples of people and companies starting small and then using their momentum to create new opportunity.

Your turn: What is your big idea? And what is the first small step you can take?